Some thirty years later, dapper Parisian impresario Jacques Bénazet added a casino, catapulting Baden-Baden to an elite playground that lured an international who’s-who to play, promenade and soothe their rheumatic joints: Tolstoy, Strauss, Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm I, Dostoyevsky, Bismarck, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and the Vanderbilts all visited. The baths were a hit in nineteenth-century Germany, so architect Friedrich Weinbrenner designed a complementary Neoclassical spa quarter. Brief historyīaden margraves built today’s thermal baths in 1810 around the same springs that once lured Roman bathers – in particular Emperor Caracalla – nearly two millennia earlier. The absence of any heavyweight sights, moreover, helps make it a near perfect setting for a recuperative weekend. In the nineteenth century this was the St Tropez of high society and something of this era’s privilege survives in the dusty elegance of its villas, hotels and boutiques and in the manicured gardens where well-groomed socialites promenade. The smart and dignified grande dame of German spas, BADEN-BADEN lies cradled in the palm of idyllic and gentle wooded hills, 42km south of Karlsruhe. Deep valleys are flanked by rounded peaks like the Feldberg that tops out at 1493m, and include many minor ski and lake resorts. Exploring its usually sun-soaked narrow streets is fun, but its main attraction is as a handy base from which to explore the entire Southern Black Forest. South of here, the attractive and upbeat university town of Freiburg dominates. Both drives can be used to access the attractive Kinzig Valley which, along with the adjoining Gutach Valley, is considered the most quintessential and traditional Black Forest area. The most genteel base is Baden-Baden, a grand old nineteenth-century spa town in the north that specializes in dignified recuperation and pampering.īad Wildbad, is another smaller, less expensive alternative in the Northern Black Forest, which is otherwise known for its attractive marked drives, particularly the scenic Schwarzwaldhochstrasse, or the Badische Weinstrasse, which travels the range’s foothills through wine country. Relative to its fame, the Black Forest region is not terribly big – about 150km long and maybe 50km wide – and so easily explored by car in just a few days, though of course that rather misses the chance to drop down a gear in one of Germany’s most treasured regions where good scenery is matched by many time-honoured traditions.ĭozens of attractive slow-paced small towns and villages make touring a delight, but perhaps the best way to explore is to base yourself in one of the two largest towns and strike out from there. So you won’t find yourself alone exploring this attractive region, but escaping the crowds at the various hotspots is easy, particularly if you’re keen to explore on foot or by bike. All these continue to provide jobs, though the regional mainstay is now tourism, which continues year-round thanks to skiing and spa facilities. Inevitably the Black Forest first rose to commercial prominence for its timber, and forestry naturally spawned woodwork – giving farmers something to do in the winter – and so the famous cuckoo-clock industry, the associated precision engineering, and the manufacture of musical instruments followed.

The Romans found it harsh and rather impenetrable and the region took centuries to populate and even then was considered an oddly backward part of Germany.

Since Roman times this series of rounded granite summits, which topographically forms a counterpart to France’s Vosges on the other, western, side of the Rhine Valley, has been a border region.

Black forest regional park